Between the Filaments
by Zaedah
Summary: Stubborn by genetics and imprudent by practice, he fights them on principle.


Please enjoy responsibly. Beware of TIVA undercurrent.

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**Between the Filaments**

He's not startled by the gunfire. The ricocheting claps are steady, pulsing hollow like a neighbor's angry alarm and as such he will not rouse to its call. Crouched behind a load bearing column, he returns the crackling shots as enemy projectiles push the air too near his pounding head. The storm screaming outside the cinderblock walls matters little to those playing out this round. There are two less players by his hand. They fired first and justification is born of such things.

And he's alone.

The warehouse is a relic, a monument to a tamer era as it stands on outdated legs to host temporary visitors. Desperate squatters and bored teens have left traces of secrets on every dirty surface. The fighters leave their marks now. Fresh bullet casings fall between used syringes and condom wrappers. He waits among the discarded trash, swallowing the metallic taint forming on his tongue. Echoes tell him that the men and their abundant munitions are closer now. Too far from any exit, he takes stock and finds it woefully lacking. Not enough rounds. Not enough time. Not enough.

Story of his life.

Daring slams sense to the mat, propelling him away from the impacted pillar and out into the deafening open. The rattling of spent shells on cement begins anew, ringing like tin in a tunnel. Adrenalin roars in his ears as he picks a dodging path to the bay door and then all he can hear is water. _A glistening brunette waits in the shower for him, the spray tapping the porcelain in an enticing rhythm._ She fills his many voids with a smile, but now something digs up new holes.

The day had started so well.

Memory, a preferable distraction to reality, abandons him when the pain comes in a shred of flesh. The floor rises to meet his descent. Lungs pull in what little air mingles with the thick dust stirred by his collapse. They follow the choking gasps to their fallen prize but quickly fall back in deference to the spinning steel darting around them. He wants to watch the scurrying retreat but his eyes won't open.

Stay awake.

Her voice filters in from another place, the one where the pain resides. Tempting, but the dark offers its own advantages. Tiny hands press to his skin, a feeble barrier to the rushing red tide that must surely stain her. He regrets that. And then he can't feel her. Anything. The engulfing black speaks generous promises and he drifts where its charitable fingertips lead. Breathing is rendered painless by forgoing the activity altogether.

They drag him back.

Stubborn by genetics and imprudent by practice, he fights them on principle. Sirens invade his coveted silence, encroaching on the promise. And her voice in the chorus makes the song no sweeter while she asks the impossible; he can't hold on when there's nothing to grasp. They shock him for his disobedience, voltage violating his right to decide by forcing his body to react. Making him feel again. The pain returns in a typhoon that her sticky hands can't soothe. He just wants to sleep.

Everything is white.

The crafty black had been far easier on the senses, this starkness assaulting his ears and searing his retinas. Inescapable. Beeping and shuffling fuse into a soundtrack for the waking. Under punishing florescent bulbs she has aged and the hesitant kiss pressed to his cheek is repentance for crimes he lacks the strength to lay at her feet. Every one of the four entry points aches in defiance of the dripping solutions. More promises broken.

She loves him.

The concept isn't vocalized. It's in the light glinting off the edge of her teardrop. It's the gentle pressure of her hand, insistent and careful and needing. It's immersed in all her other words, skillfully dancing around that sacred truth. Life and death fall away so he might hear her implied proclamation as it replaces the tinny casings and adrenalin and water. In all the world there exists no other sound. And there are no more voids.

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_**Void (in astronomy): the empty spaces between galaxy filaments**_


End file.
